Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 301: Centaur's Wake, Part Two
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When Valentine reaches medbay, he watches from the door a moment and sees she's got things well in hand. She's prepping Eli for surgery, cutting his clothing off, swabbing the surgical area down. He takes another good look. She's doing okay. She's not licking the blood off the walls or her gloves or her instruments. She's treating her patient as a doctor, not eating him as a Reaver.
For the moment, that's the best he can hope for. Knowing he can't go in to assist without contaminating the procedure—she's suited in scrubs, he isn't—Valentine goes up to the bridge to find out what he can about the station. Maybe it's not completely automated. There might be human crew inside hailing him and they might start getting antsy if he doesn't respond. Valentine counts the time backwards in his head since their landing—yup. More than long enough to make anyone's trigger finger itchy.
The bridge is quiet when he gets there, nothing but the hum of the machines and the ticks and pops of the ship settling meets his ears. No angry demands for a reply to a hail, no robotic voice counting down a self-destruct sequence.
No dragons, either. Vikki should be pleased.
Looking out the bridge windows, he sees we are hooked up to the station's airlock. The seal indicators show green but he's got no idea what's on the other side. Could be no one. Could be automated security systems. And there's no guarantee that there would be any deuterium either. Deciding nothing on the bridge needs him at the moment, Valentine goes back down to the airlock where the rest of his crew is readying to leave.
Valentine: We're going to need more deuterium, right, Poco?
Poco: It'd be nice.
Valentine: That means we got to get some more or make some more. It ain't gonna magically appear.
Rachel: Now, I dunno. Tink's babblin' on about dragons and dwarves or somethin' here.
Valentine: Vikki, is this something I should know about?
Vikki: Doesn't anyone read the classics anymore? Oh my gosh.
Rachel: Classics? You mean Earth That Was classics?
Vikki: We all have to come from somewhere and we carried stuff with us when we—
Valentine: Vikki. Vikki.
Vikki: What?
Valentine: Deuterium. Does this have anything to do with deuterium?
Rachel: The dwarves. Do they do deuterium?
Vikki: They had a forge. You know, I betcha we could refine some!
Valentine: I'm going to regret that comment.
Valentine can see the wheels spinning up in Vikki's head and knows that he's going to have to reel her in before she goes off into Never-Never Land. (Another ETW literary reference, by the way … )
Rachel edges closer to Poco.
Rachel: (to Poco) You know, I'm gonna work with you.
Valentine: No. All of you are working together. Vikki. Put that mind of yours to working out different ways or some unusual ways we can find what we need. How likely or unlikely is it that on this comet we're going to find deuterium?
Vikki: Deuterium … okay … (settles in) … It's a hydrogen isotope and it—
Valentine: Okay. I want the three of you to get the intakes unclogged and if the deuterium is still leaking, prevent us losing what more we got left. Do those two things and I'll help. How many suits do we have on this ship?
He opens the suit locker in the hold. There's enough for everyone. He pauses and revises his plans.
Valentine: I'm going to check on our patient and make sure he's okay, then see about corralling Tian. If he's stable enough to stay put, I think we need to go out and see what's out there.
Poco: If he's not, are you willing to leave her alone with him?
Valentine: I'm making these choices as we go. In some respects, leaving her alone might be the safer aspect of this.
Poco: That would be nice but I think she should come with.
Valentine: Let's not tempt the Universe, okay?
Valentine goes back to medbay to see how Tian's progressing. He sees she's in the middle of cleaning up. In the middle, because she's paused in her work and is mesmerized by the blood on her hands, cleaning it off very slowly. As he approaches, he sees her look from the red stuff still clinging to her hands to the blood drips on Eli's skin. Something about the drip pattern catches Valentine's attention: it's less dripped and more drawn … as if Tian had stopped to fingerpaint it on him like some sort of Reaver Rorschach pattern.
Oh geez.
Valentine slows down and approaches cautiously, fully aware of all the many sharp objects close to hand. Tian swung at him with a scalpel once while in the grip of a Reaverish compulsion. Given the way she's slowly wiping the blood off her hands, as if fascinated by the color and the gore, she might well be in a similar state. Valentine worries if he allows it to continue, if it becomes an ingrained habit, it will be harder and harder to override. And that gives him a clue.
Pulling her military history from memory, he puts an edge on his voice, a snap in his step, and speaks up.
Valentine: Lieutenant Commander Grace.
Tian's head jerks right up, she pivots on her heel to face him, and answers.
Tian: Sir!
Valentine: There we go. How worried should we be for our patient?
Tian: He requires immediate surgery, Captain.
Valentine steps in front of her.
Valentine: Are you actually capable of elective surgery at this point?
Tian: Captain, it's not elective surgery. If he doesn't have the surgery, he's going to die.
Valentine: And you're the only person on this ship capable of doing that and yet you are busy staring at the wall like it's got the secrets of the Universe contained in it.
Tian's eyes flicker oh-so-slightly toward the walls in question but her military training holds: they stay on Valentine's face. He hardens his tone and sharpens his stare.
Valentine: Are you going to kill this man if you perform the surgery on him?
Tian: No, Captain.
Valentine: Then stop staring at the damn wall and start performing the damn surgery.
Tian: (subdued) Yes, Captain.
Valentine eases back on the harsh, just a touch.
Valentine: What do you need out of me?
Tian: I can't do the surgery without at least one set of helping hands.
Valentine: Then that's what I'm here for.
Tian heads for the sink to truly wash up and Valentine follows to do the same. Before he starts scrubbing up, however, he hits the wall comm and does a check on the rest of the crew.
Valentine: I'm helping Dr. Grace perform surgery. Get out there. Fix the intake valves. Do NOT approach the station until I'm done.
Rachel: Wasn't plannin' on it. Sir, yes, sir.
He has to trust the rest of the crew to do their jobs. Tian needs him to ride herd on her more than they at the moment (Vikki's literary ramblings notwithstanding). For her part, Vikki stares at the wall comm in the hold and sighs.
Vikki: (disappointed) … Okay ….
Rachel: Okay, point me at something. Y'all go fix and I'll sweep or whatever.
Valentine: Vikki, get the power running to med bay please, thank you.
Vikki perks up and gets the power running to med bay. While Valentine hits the sink, the rest of the crew hits the airlock and soon they're outside on the landing pad. There's a ton of dust underfoot and thanks to the lower gravity of the Centaur, it kicks up with very little provocation. Thanks to surface tension in sub-Earth gravity conditions, it tends to cling to stuff too. The crew realizes that in cleaning out the valves, they might be depositing more dust in them than they're removing.
Vikki: What if we rig up a reverse static charge and repel it from our intakes?
Poco: I was thinking earlier that we could just blast it out the intakes.
That would just put the dust back into the environment so it can clog our intakes again.
Poco: What I mean is, get off this rock first, and then blast out our intakes. What if we rig a cover on the outside of the intakes, to keep the dust we stir up out of them?
We're in space. There's no atmo for the intakes to suck. So … hmm … that might work. Vikki gets to working on it while Poco works on finding and patching our deuterium leak.
In med bay, Valentine succeeds in keeping Tian focused on the task at hand. She gets the internal injuries repaired. Toward the end of the procedure, Tian's running on autopilot—trauma surgery is nothing new to her—and she realizes her fingers have been stroking Eli's descending thoracic aorta, halfway toward pinching it shut, seized by a morbid curiosity of how long it would take Eli to die ... How easy it would be.
Horrified, she pulls her hands out of Eli and stares, fingers trembling. Valentine sees the color drain out of her face and he puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and gives her a steadying squeeze.
Valentine: Stay focused. We'll talk. Just give yourself a minute, okay? You have this.
She gets the sutures set in record time, dresses the surgical wound, and hits the sink to get the blood off her hands … to scrub away what she nearly did. Meanwhile, Valentine starts cleaning up the med bay to give her time to pull herself together. Tian is still scrubbing away when he's done. Valentine goes over to the sink. Caught out, Tian wilts and grips the sink in a death grip, head down and staring at the water splashing down the drain. Valentine silently reaches over and turns off the tap.
Valentine: Focus in on me. We're going to talk.
Tian: I can't do my job on this ship.
Valentine: Yes, you can.
Tian: Not like that.
Valentine: Yes, you can. You can do this job. You can do the job. You just have to find how to work around th—(off her look)—Did I say it was going to be easy?
Tian: You don't understand.
Tian pushes off the sink and strides away from him, shaking her head. Valentine follows but gives her a little space. He doesn't want to corner her.
Valentine: (gently) So explain it to me.
Tian: I'm not sure what you did is always going to work.
Valentine: I didn't say it was. But guess what? I need you. And so—
Tian: Do you know what was happening when I was operating on that man?
She sketches a nod at Eli on the table.
Valentine: Something clearly scary. Thinking about killing him?
Tian: (small) All the little ways I could … touch his organs and … squish one little artery. Take him out of the world. How easy it would be. How silent.
Valentine: (soft) Yeah.
She looks at him finally and sees he understands the potential for violence, for murder that lies within all of us.
Valentine: It's always been true. So I think the next step is figuring out how to reinforce the parts of you that normally prevents that from ever happening. Your training. Your doctor's training and your military training. Figuring out ways to set up alarms for yourself that something's happening.
Tian: But Val—
Valentine: None of this is going to solve the problem. What I'm saying is—
He stops as she holds up a hand.
Tian: I don't know how to … identify it before I'm already too far in the fugue state.
Valentine: So, fugue state. Meaning a defined psychological term. I'm no psychologist but my point is, you wouldn't be blaming someone who has pneumonia for sitting around and coughing, right? It's the same here. Thing is, you're sick, there are these symptoms, and you're going to figure out ways to work around the symptoms until we find a solution. And so the answer in my mind is you shouldn't work alone anymore. If you think there's a better solution, then hit me with it but I think that having somebody on hand for any time you think you'll hit a trigger point—(he nods at Eli)—and this is a trigger point, right? I'm assuming that the blood was what triggered it. I'm assuming you're not going to go Reaver just because you didn't get your lunch that day.
Tian shakes her head and murmurs her doubt.
Tian: I don't know that I'll necessarily go Reaver the way that you imply, so much as … I'm still waiting on—What was her name? Wickett?—Dr. Wickett to send me some of her research.
Valentine: All right, but I think this just steps up the likelihood that we're going to need to be in touch with her more than just waving her back and forth for research.
Tian: But that … I can't stay planetside and let her dope me up to the eyeballs.
Valentine: You may not be doped. Talk with her first.
Tian: No, it's a drug regimen she's developing.
Valentine: Do you have to stay on planet?
Tian: The implication is yes. It needs to be extremely … (sighs) …
Valentine: Okay, and why can't you?
Tian pauses. Why can't she? Does he even understand what he's suggesting?
Tian: Really?
Valentine: What's more important? I want you on this ship and I want you flying but I also care about you. I want you to—
Tian: I will put myself out the airlock before I allow them to imprison me.
Whoa! Prison? What?
Valentine: Prison is a strong word. If you were giving your patients regimens of drugs and they were going through a cancer treatment, would you say that you'd—how is that dramatically different?
Tian: I don't have any intention to … if the regimen has to be watched as closely as the implication was, then—
Valentine: (firm) Then we find a way around that. We'll talk. We'll talk to her. There's bound to be a solution.
Tian: If that's the way it's got to be, I might as well have let them take me. When Christian came after us. It would have at least taken me out of your hair.
Valentine cuts a long sigh. Does Tian really think he doesn't give a damned lǎoshǔ de pìgu for her welfare? That he would have just thrown her under the bus just to avoid the problems she's facing now?
Valentine: The hell with that. You're here. We'll find a solution. There's ways to work around it.
Tian: I would love to make him hurt. Play with his insides.
Valentine: Whoa-hhhh. Back with me. Come back with me.
Tian: I'm actually with you at this moment. (frustrated laugh) I can't help it. Occasionally it's just that … If I'm going to be totally Reaverized and want to play with people's insides, let's play with his.
Valentine: Let's get ourselves off this damned comet in pursuit of our one hundred-gazillion digits of credits and—
Tian: (laughing) You know that's never going to happen right?
Meaning the money. Valentine is thankful for the redirection. At least he's distracted her from thoughts of blood and death and people's insides.
Valentine: Yes, but the pursuit is half the fun in this case. We gotta have a goal, gotta have something to dream after.
Tian: I'm terrified of what I'm becoming.
And Tian swings back to her problem.
Valentine: I know and that's why we're going to solve this.
He gives her arm a reassuring squeeze and leaves her in the med bay with her patient. It’s the clearest vote of confidence he can give her right now. He doesn't go far. He hits the nearest wall comm and keys it to his crew's suit channels.
Valentine: Ladies and Gentlemen, how are you doing?
Vikki: We got the intakes figured out and it won't take much to get underway, but we're going to need deuterium.
Valentine: And now we need the deuterium. Yeah. I got that.
Vikki: Can we go aboard now? And start poking around and see if we can jigger something on site? Cuz I think I can rig up an electrolysis machine to really really start refining the deuterium out of the station's water supply and—well, okay, never mind. It's easier to show you once I get it made than to explain it before I do it.
Poco: Captain, you also realize that they've probably waved whoever owns this rock as soon as we landed?
Valentine: Probably.
Poco: And they've a picture of us landing.
Valentine: Such is life.
Poco: And they'll have seen us taking anything from it. I'm just sayin'.
Valentine: No, I understand.
Vikki: Before I go outside, maybe I should wash my face and brush my hair, then.
Rachel: Probably what they've sent is a recording of a derelict ship crashing into the station. So maybe they'll just assume that there's a junk heap on it.
Poco: Well, I wouldn't be wavin' at the camera but—
Valentine: All right. Enough. Staff meeting, so I don't have to do this over the damn comm.
The crew comes in from all points and they have that staff meeting. Tian arrives last and announces as she walks in:
Tian: Eli's going to be all right.
Rachel: (relieved) Thank you.
Tian takes a chair and Rachel leans in.
Rachel: What happened? Did he hit his head?
Valentine: Meteorite. Let's solve the immediate problem and we can worry about everything else. All right. Deuterium. We're proposing to go and "liberate" some from the hands of whoever owns this station?
Vikki: (chirps) Uh-huh!
Valentine: That's fine. Somebody write us up an IOU note, "We have borrowed some deuterium. IOU, the Pirates". I'm mostly joking.
Poco: This also means, by the way, that our attempt to do this won't go unnoticed.
Valentine: What's done is done. There's no solving that problem. Let's get us up and running and we'll worry about the consequences of getting up and running after it happens. How is everybody doing? I know that some of us—(pointed look at Vikki and Poco)—have been up non-stop for approximately for … forever.
Vikki: (blinks) … Really?
Rachel just crosses her arms.
Rachel: You know, I need me being asleep too, sometimes.
Valentine: (at Rachel) Do you really need to do this right now?
Vikki: (yawns) … No, I'm fine.
Poco: Whatever.
Vikki's yawning. Poco's part-soused and hopped up on nicotine. The Captain's query stands, though: are they in any shape to pursue anything but some shut-eye? Valentine sweeps Poco with a critical eye, one honed from years of measuring patrons' drunk-levels at the casino. As for Vikki …
Valentine: All right. We need to get into suits and go.
Poco: (looks at his suit) We're already there.
Vikki: Yeah. Well, I mean … if we … could just get some ice, we wouldn't even have to deplete their stores. We could just crack it out of the hydro trapped in the ice.
Valentine: Isn't a comet mostly ice?
Vikki: Yeah. So, I mean, ice.
Valentine: So how are we going to crack it? We don't have laboratory facilities on board.
Vikki: Yeah, I know, I know. If we're already running hot, I'd say just slap the ice up against the hull and take the run off as it melts into a liquid and cap—
Valentine: Vikki.
Vikki: And you run it through the electrolysis and separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and just keep the hydrogen and—
Valentine: Vikki.
Vikki: And—what?
Valentine: Is this a fantasy option or an actual option.
Vikki: I'm working it out. I'm turning it from fantasy to reality. Just let me go through my process. So, if … I just—
Valentine stops her before she can go off again.
Valentine: I don't have a lot of time for this because I don't want to get caught and I don't want another puncture happening to the ship.
Vikki: Okay, fast and dirty. Deuterium is heavy water. But that's a misnomer. What deuterium really is, is a hydrogen isotope. It's got a neutron where it normally wouldn't have one. We can get it from water because water is made with hydrogen. We just gotta crack it and—.
Valentine: No, I get the basic chemistry here, or at least the basic idea of the chemistry, but do we actually have the equipment on board to be able to do that?
Vikki: Electrolysis is fairly simple. All you gotta do is run a current through it. No, the thing that's tricky is capturing the out-gassing of the hydrogen when—.
Valentine: Can we? I think the question is how much would it take for you to actually do that?
Vikki: For that, I need to know what we actually have to work with. To do that, I need to get aboard the station and see what they've got.
Valentine: I'll say this. Keep your eyes open when we're aboard that station. If there's deuterium there, if we're already going on board that station, which is basically invading private property, I'm just going to take the deuterium and run with it and not worry about trying to make our own. We're already trespassing onto private property. I don't think they're going to make the distinction between us using all their supplies to make the deuterium instead of just taking it.
Vikki: Raid the pantry for the apple pie instead of making it. Gotcha.
Valentine: Let's suit up. (off Tian's look) Does Eli need you right now, now that he's unconscious? No? Then suit up. We're all going.
He doesn't say that it's also so he can keep an eye on Tian. That's a matter they're keeping between themselves. Vikki looks down at the suit she's wearing. She's been in it for almost 24 hours already. Suiting up is just putting her helmet back on.
The airlock controls show green for atmo on the other side. It should be safe to open the door and walk aboard the station. Poco hauls the airlock door open and the crew sees the station's corresponding airlock door ten steps away. It's not locked. Convention rarely has it so.
The station gives a hiss as they open its airlock door and crew walks right in. The hiss means there's atmo to breathe. The lights all show green on their suits. The crew crack open their helmets to save their air and take a sniff.
Rotten eggs. Sulfur and other stinky compounds are generally part of a comet's chemical make-up so the air smells. It's safe to breathe, though, and free air in space is appreciated no matter how it smells.
There are faint emergency lights all up and down the corridor they're in. There are crates and boxes shoved against the walls and there's an apparatus of some kind a little farther down blocking the middle of the walkway. Getting closer, Vikki can see it's some kind of robot. It seems frozen where it is. Awww, poor thing …. Vikki starts rummaging in her bag for her tools.
Rachel: I heard tell'a this crew that mail-ordered a robot and they never paid it off … Don't touch it.
Valentine: Leave it. The robot's not important. Where should we go? Let's start spreading out. Let's find the deuterium. Vikki, you know what you're looking for?
There's a hiss and a grind and the robot stirs. Pneumatics hiss as it warms up and it's voice is deep and just a little scratchy, as if it's hoarse from not talking for a long time.
Robot: Identify yourselves.
Rachel: Captain?
To Poco's eye, it looks like a cargo loading robot instead of a security robot. He nods at Valentine a silent message: Go ahead.
Valentine: Our ship landed—well, landed is a strong word—but we—
Robot: Your navigational beacon has been recorded.
Valentine: Yeah, I figured it had. We are in need of assistance. We are in need of deuterium in order to get our ship launched and off this comet.
There is a long pause.
Robot: I will begin cycling the power to send waves for assistance.
Valentine: Don't you have deuterium here? Do you have to send out that wave?
Another fairly long pause.
Robot: I will cycle power to send a message.
Vikki cranes her neck from where she's standing, hoping to see the off switch on the robot.
Valentine: Do you have a name? Is there a name I can associate with this voice?
Robot: I am the artificial intelligence known as Gandalf.
Vikki: Another Tolkien reference? See? Someone does read the classics. Hi!
Vikki beams and waves at Gandalf. Valentine motions to Vikki to pipe down.
Valentine: All right, Gandalf. Can you hold off on the wave for the moment and tell me what other options you can give me?
Gandalf: You are in need of deuterium, you say?
Valentine: Yes. However, a wave for assistance is unlikely to be useful or in time.
Gandalf: I am unable to access the stores of deuterium on board.
Valentine: Do you have equipment with which we can make deuterium? What do we need?
Rachel: Water. Right?
Vikki: Yeah!
Valentine: Tell Gandalf what we need in order to make deuterium.
Gandalf: There are no laboratory facilities aboard Erebor.
Valentine: (to Gandalf) Let her talk.
Valentine can tell Vikki's gonna blow a gasket if she can't get a word in edgewise. She shoots Valentine a grateful look and starts ticking the items off on her fingers.
Vikki: We need water. Or a source for water, like ice. We need—
Gandalf: There are approximately seven hundred million tons of H2O on this station.
Valentine: Okay, just get to the stuff we don't have for this.
Poco: What's not on Delilah that we need?
That throws Vikki. We've got so much crap on our ship that it's hard to pinpoint exactly what we have and don't have.
Valentine: Just focus on what we immediately need. Water and what equipment? Tell him what equipment we need.
Vikki: (flat, fast) We're looking for deuterium. Minus deuterium ready-made , we need to make it. To do tha, we need a power source. We need a containment chamber to capture the deuterium as it cracks out. We also need a containment chamber for the water or the ice we are melting for the water before we run the power through it. So, lemme see … two containment pods, electrical leads, a power source to run it, some way to regulate it, and oh yeah, a couple of sensors so we can figure out how much we've got and—well, that's just the general idea.
Valentine: Is any of that available aboard the station? Gandalf?
A pause.
Gandalf: The tools you are describing are consistent with a deuterium extraction apparatus. Such exists on board. However, my sensors are unable to determine the condition of that apparatus.
Vikki: That's what my eyes and hands and brain are for. I can do that if you let me. Please?
Valentine: And then we'll be out of your hair.
Gandalf: I have several malfunctioning automata. Would you be able to repair them?
Valentine: Damn well, she can.
Vikki: (beaming now!) Oh goody! When can I start?
Valentine: Right now.
Vikki: Okay! Where are they? Oh goody, it's a scavenger hunt!
Vikki actually bounces in place and looks around while Poco facepalms and groans. Oh god, they had to rev Tinkerbell up and let her loose? Why? Why?
Gandalf: The automaton labeled …
Vikki: Gimli?
Gandalf: … Dori, can access the deuterium areas. However, until you repair the power systems, we are operating on solar power cells.
Vikki: (sympathy!) Ooh, yeah …
Gandalf: You will need Oin and Gloin for that.
Pronounced "Own" and "Glow-win". And "Dorry". Vikki's eyes go wide with glee.
Gandalf: I cannot give you their locations because my mapping systems are not functional.
Valentine: We'll have to find them. Okay. (to Vikki) They really were readers of the classics.
Gandalf: According to my records, we do have large quantities of lithium, selenium, and platinum.
Valentine: And what are we going to use those for?
Gandalf: You can import them back to Corone system.
Valentine: Yeah, I'll make sure to do that. The goal right now is to grab whatever's necessary to fix your automatons and get the deuterium extractor working so we can extract some deuterium and leave this property. Does that sound like a plan? Everyone and Gandalf?
Vikki agrees before anyone else says a word. Clearly, she's on board.
Vikki: Where's your power plant?
Gandalf: If you can get my power systems operational, I will send a quantity of deuterium sufficient to get you to your destination.
Valentine: Okay. Vikki? Get to work on that?
Vikki: Yeah! I just need to get some tools from the ship and I'll be right back!
With a little squeal of glee, Vikki turns to run back to the airlock.
Valentine: Poco.
Poco: (sighs) What?
Valentine: Go with her.
Before Vikki or Poco can move, Gandalf speaks up.
Gandalf: Caution. Due to the unstable nature of the structure of this Centaur, you may experience decompression and minor-to-severe earthquakes. My alarm systems are not functional in all areas but I will try to alert you when I can.
Valentine: I appreciate it.
Rachel: Oh, well, that's mighty friendly.
Gandalf: I'll do my best.
Valentine assigns the crew their tasks.
Valentine: Vikki will find and work on the power source. I need someone to watch her back.
Rachel: I can watch her back.
Valentine: Keep alert. The rest of us will start finding the automatons in case she gets the power up so we don't have to spend longer here than we have to. Be careful out there. So, Gandalf, can you actually direct us where we need to go to fix your power source?
Gandalf: Power systems cycling down. It should be available to you in four to five hours.
Vikki: Before you go to sleep, do you have seven more automatons for a total of … ten? For all the dwarves in the story?
Gandalf: Twelve.
Vikki: Cool!
Tian: What?
Vikki: (cryptically) There'll be more. Anyway, let's go get our tools! (singing) Thirteen birds/In the tall pine trees/And their boughs were fanned/By a fiery breeze …
And Vikki runs off to get her tools. Damned if she doesn't make the deck smoke.
Valentine: Keep an eye on her please, Rachel? I'm rather fond of her.
Rachel: (agreeing) Can't kill her.
Valentine: Or let her kill herself. Keep her focused. Don't let her scavenge.
Rachel: I can keep her on target. I can take care of your little girl. We'll be fine.
The station actually has grav plates under the decking, so the crew doesn't have to work in low or micro-grav. Once off the station, however, it's back to floating in their suits. Still, work goes faster than if had there been no grav at all.
The station is a pretty bare bones operation. It's mostly operated. There's a minimal amount of stuff designed for people. If a maintenance crew was required to visit, there is a container module with rudimentary living quarters set up inside—some fold down bunks, a bath/toilet unit, a hot plate. Very minimal. It doesn't look as if there's been any people here in a very long time. There's no food. No beer, either—Rachel's checked.
Tian checks Eli. He's not entirely out of the woods but he's on the mend. The power aboard Delilah is iffy as well and Valentine's standing orders to conserve every last bit of it affects med bay operations. At the moment, Eli doesn't need anything that Tian can't provide, but should his condition change for rhe worse … Tian sits with her patient, keeping an eagle eye on him.
Valentine is well aware of this and checks on Tian.
Valentine: Get some sleep.
Tian: (dryly) Really.
Valentine: Everything's fine. We're only sitting here with an AI that might go crazy at any minute on a comet that might fall apart on us before we can take off.
While he's only half-joking, he's also half-serious. The situation's only half-grim, so why not crack a half-joke to lighten the mood a little? Time enough for the totally-grim when it gets here.
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